Embracing Ignorance

Science is based on ignorance.

The invention that created modern science was not a discovery of any piece of knowledge in geography or astronomy, like those of Copernicus or Darwin. The big Scientific Revolution, which launched modern science, was the discovery of ignorance.

For thousands of years, people thought they knew everything, believing that some holy book or holy person held all the answers. They felt there was no need to learn anything new because they believed they knew everything.

Science began when humans admitted that they didn't know everything. No book in the world has all the answers, and no person knows everything. Once we have the courage and honesty to admit our ignorance, we can start investigating, and that is science.

That shift in mentality allowed humans to go looking for answers.

Think about what it would be like to live in a world where every mystery was answered with “It is in the book”. Progress was restricted precisely because humanity was bound by certainty.

So when Copernicus said the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, he wasn't just challenging astronomical theory; he was challenging the very notion that everything was already known for certain.

Acceptance of ignorance sparked an explosion in curiosity.

People started to wonder, hypothesize, and experiment. It was like turning on a light in a dark room: suddenly they saw how much more there is to explore.

It evolved into something more than finding answers, they began discovering new questions.

Those same questions drove human progress to new heights — faster than ever before. Today’s conveniences are just the fruits of our collective willingness to acknowledge ignorance and seek out truths.

However, these days, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

Instead of accepting our ignorance and using it to pursue knowledge, we seem to prefer holding on to what we believe. In large part, this may be attributed to social media feeding us content that reinforces our preconceived notions and shields us from alternative perspectives.

The result is an echo chamber that fosters the illusion of certainty, deepens polarization, and paradoxically makes us more ignorant despite having more information.

A study by MIT, for instance, found that false news on Twitter spreads six times faster than the truth, primarily because algorithms prioritize engagement over accuracy, creating an environment where misinformation not only spreads quickly but actually thrives.

The effects of this phenomenon are particularly evident in politics.

It used to be that there were different opinions and people debated them with the understanding that nobody had all the answers. Nowadays, political discourse is polarized, with people likely to dismiss opposing viewpoints without giving them any thought. The algorithms that control what we see in our news feed make things worse by showing us articles that confirm our prejudices.

The algorithm driven belief confirmation feedback loop has created a society where individuals are more certain of their opinions than ever, yet increasingly disconnected from the complexities of reality.

This phenomenon extends far beyond politics.

The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, exposed the deadly consequences of misinformation as false claims about vaccines and treatments fueled widespread confusion to undermine public health efforts. This highlights the ease with which misinformation can spread and the dangers of the unwarranted confidence it creates.

Blind belief requires no evidence and remains unchanged despite new data, leading to stagnation.

Today's echo chambers threaten progress precisely because they hinder the process of acknowledging that there are gaps in our understanding of reality by providing us with a false sense of certainty.

As Voltaire warned, "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."

If we are to continue making progress, we must actively resist the lure of unwarranted certainty. Instead, we must embrace doubt, befriend uncertainty, and accept our ignorance. Through that acceptance lies the path to knowledge and ultimately to progress.

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